Cold Climate Gardening

Up here in the U.P. we are still deep in snow, about 2-3 feet of it in my back yard. My windows are filled with plants - geraniums, aparagas ferns that were removed from planters and starts that need planting. Under lights in the basement are any number of ivy plants, also taken from client planters and being carried over. I have any number of babies from those, some still in water.
Last fall I had a bit of a puzzle - had ordered lilies bulbs and iris rhizomes for a client and then, the area that they were to be planted in did not get prepared before snow (required heavier equipment than I work with) so I’ve experimented. I …

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First, some more plants in lawns: tansy, yarrow, prickly lettuce and a green flowered knotweed. Also, in Peterson’s Field Guide to Wildflowers, pigweed and lamb’s quarters are interchangeable common names. That’s the joy of common names. The scientific name is Chenopodium album.

We’re still having a slow year. Usually the leaves are well on their way to coloring up, but only a few have any color, and I think that may be due to them being stressed in some way. Perhaps the extra amount of rain has kept the trees green longer.

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Here are some additional plants in our lawns that are not lawns. Some I had forgotten and some I hadn’t identified. Wild chamomile (pineapple plant), lambs quarters or pig weed (can be cookied and eaten;tastes like spinach), chickweed, rose mallow, butter and eggs, and sand spurrey. There are probably more!

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Ever been to a county fair where the only tomato entries were green tomatoes? Noone had ripe ones up here. I’m not sure mine will ever get riipe. We’re due for another cold spell. And some of the potatoes at the fair were the size of golf balls. My flowers are blooming beautifully, though! And speaking of lawns that aren’t lawns. We live in town, but a botanist would have a field day in the mown “grass” in our alley, and the back yards there. A partial list: Heal All, Shepherd’s Purse, plaintain, dandelions (of course), Bellflowered Bedstraw, a tiny Forget-me-not, sheep sorrel, a tiny crucifer, horseweed, and others I have either forgotten or haven’t identified. …

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What’s your favorite tool? I’ve found that I can’t garden without a garden fork. It is absolutely indispensable. It goes into the ground much more easily than a spade or shovel, though a small spade is handy for digging out plants for trans-planting. Now I’ve found a hand fork is almost as indispensable. Mixing soil, digging weeks, spreading mulch - all kinds of things. My son, who works with me, finds my sharp square spade works best to dig the holes for planting shrubs. We have a lot of stony ground up here along with sand and silt.

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If you think you live in a cold climate, you should live here. We are at least 2 weeks behind our usual temp. My late tulips are still in bloom, and irises are just beginning to open, with peonies in tight bud. Last night it was in the 40’s.
We are also 4 inches above normal rainfall. This has had an unfortunate effect on my tomatoes in their walls o’ water: not the cold, but the moisture. Too wet.
This has all put me very much behind in the planting I do in my business and with our short season getting the hundreds of annuals in and the planters planted is of prime imprtance. We had …

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This is in the “what’s up” category. Out of eleven rose bushes planted (eight last year) all but one made it through our U.P. winter - zone 4 - and are leafing out nicely. John Cabot and William Baffin are climbers that can be left on the trellis, White Meidiland and Fire Meidiland are ground cover roses. All came from Jung. I have to replace one that didn’t look good last year, but Jung is good at replacement My method is to pot them up as soon as I get them and grow them on awhile before planting out. Can baby them a bit that way.

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